LOS ANGELES — When Kendrick Perkins was asked how he was feeling on Wednesday after getting the word from doctors that his season ended when he went down in the paint with 5:30 left in the first quarter, he responded with a question of his own.

“Physically, or mentally?” Perkins replied.

That response indicated just how painful Tuesday night’s season ending knee injury was to the Celtics starting center.

Perkins then elaborated that he tore his MCL and suffered a partial tear of another ligament in his right knee in Game 6 and will not play in Game 7 Thursday.

“Physically, I’m in pain,” Perkins announced. “I hurt my knee pretty badly. I’m out for [Thursday]. There’s nothing I can do about it.

“Torn MCL and a torn PCL, so got to watch from the sideline. I’d be lying to you if I told you it didn’t hurt, but it hurts. Game 7 of the finals, Game 6 of the finals, couldn’t help your team. Can’t do nothing but sit on the side and encourage guys to play better and play well. I’ll probably never get this opportunity again to even make it back to the finals. Physically I’m doing better than I am mentally.”

Had last night’s injury occured in the middle of the season, Perkins would not have even made the finals.

“Last night, pretty sure that I wasn’t going to play,” Perkins said. “But [Wednesday] morning, it was like, you’re out. That’s what it was, ‘You’re out.’ He told me if it was in December that if I had hurt my knee in December I probably would have missed the remainder of the season. So that tells you what it’s like.”

Perkins, who said he had yet to have an MRI on the knee, made the announcement himself as he met with the media on Wednesday afternoon at Staples Center. Perkins said he expects to have an MRI on Friday when the team arrives back in Boston.

Perkins injured his right knee in a collision with Andrew Bynum under the Lakers basket midway through the first quarter.

“Game 7 of the finals, Game 6 of the finals, couldn’t help your team, can’t really do nothing but sit on the sidelines and encourage guys to play better and play well,” Perkins said.

Perkins knew immediately that something was seriously wrong when he hit the floor.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t get up on my own. I couldn’t walk. My whole leg was hurting. The back of my knee was hurting, in pain. I heard something pop. I didn’t know what it was, but it was pain.”

Perkins decided to come out and meet with the media, something he didn’t necessarily have to do considering the emotional and physical pain he’s dealt with since going down in Game 6.

“It’s the finals,” Perkins said. “Last practice of the season, last game of the season, you kind of just want to be with your teammates and coaches, just be around the guys, especially after a tough loss like last night where you just kind of want to be around, just get that family feeling. You know, you don’t want to be in your room all day by yourself.

“I know when we lose, we always say when we get to the locker room, we feel a lot better when we get around each other. So I just felt like I needed to be around.”

The more Perkins talked, he sounded like a parent who didn’t want his children to get distracted by his own misfortune.

“It was hard [Tuesday] night,” Perkins said. “I think my teammates, coaches, the whole Celtics organization has been great supporting me. But it’s hard because you have a lot of people asking me, ‘How are you feeling and get better and things like that, at the same time, it’s not about me. We’re trying to win a championship. It’s not about me and I don’t want the focus to be on me from my teammates or nobody. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. We have a game to win.

“I just want them to stay focused on the game. I’m going to be alright. It’s an important game coming up. I appreciate my teammates and coaches and their concerns. It’s not about me. This is about winning a title.”

“Very confident,” Perkins said of his thoughts going into Game 7. “I think we’re in pretty good shape. I like the way our film session went. A lot of positive criticism so it went well. I think we’re going to be alright [Thursday].

Lamar Odom said he’s expecting nothing less than the best from Perkins’ replacements.

“You know, it’s funny, I was sitting on the bench, and they got Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett on the court at the same time, and those guys have had great careers,” Odom said. “Glen Davis is a fighter, as well. I mean, their team is still really competitive. Of course, any time you lose anyone, especially at this time of the year but it happens. It’s something we have to go through as a team. I just wish him well.”

Perkins had one more word for his teammates.

“No regrets, no regrets tomorrow,” he said. “It’s the last game year, period. There’s no more games. You don’t want any more regrets after the game. I think the biggest thing is we have to be together.”

Lakers starting center Andrew Bynum had his troublesome right knee drained again immediately after Game 4 Thursday night before he met with reporters. He said he feels much better and will play in Game 5 Sunday night at TD Garden with the NBA finals tied, 2-2.

“I went through the process and thought about it and did it again,” Bynum said following Lakers practice on Saturday at TD Garden. “It really helped out this time.”

For the first time since having two surgeries to clean out a nasty infection in his right knee around Christmas, Paul Pierce spoke before Saturday’s game and said he plans to be with the team on its upcoming road trip and is hopeful to return to practice as soon as Monday.

Pierce, who was wearing a white circulatory wrap on his right knee, said the infection and subsequent pain came upon him quickly following the team’s home-court win over Indiana on Dec. 22.

“It was a situation I got home and I was sort of sitting back and relaxing and then sort of felt a slight pain in my knee and then over a 10-to-15 minute period, it just got worse and worse,” Pierce said. “It went from just kind of hurting to sore to bad to extreme in like a 15-minute period, which was crazy.

“I called Eddie Lacerte about 1:30 in the morning and he knows I never call him unless it’s really bad. So, he came over to the house and checked it out. We went to the hospital that morning, doctor checked it out and we did the surgery. An infection somehow got into my leg.”

Pierce said after his first surgery on Dec. 23 his white blood cell count skyrocketed to 40,000 indicating an infection. The doctors then went in on Christmas Day to clean it out again and isolated the infection. He said he doesn’t have a particular game in mind for a return.

Doc Rivers began his briefing with reporters on Tuesday with the following statement about Kevin Garnett’s right knee.

“After watching him move today, we’re just going to shut him down,” Rivers said. “It probably won’t be for the year. He’ll probably play by the end, last couple of games, or last three games. It’s just not progressing the way we anticipated it would progress. So, instead of going back and forth, trying to get him run in practice and seeing he gets sore, it’s just not worth it.”

Garnett experienced continued soreness in the knee, first injured on Feb. 19 at Utah.

Here are some of the other quotes from Rivers on Tuesday:

Any second guessing on bring him back after 13 games: “We thought it was the right decision and the doctors thought it was the right decision. Again, I told you that I wasn’t going to play him until the doctors said, ‘play him.’ With half the people it’s fine and half it’s not. Unfortunately, he’s in the ‘not’ category right now.”

On working him out in practice before making Tuesday’s decision: “We assumed we were going to practice him and right now, we’re not even going to do that. We’re going to shut him down until the soreness goes away and the swelling goes away and then we bring him back up.”

On the seriousness of the injury: “We’re just going to shut him down until we feel like he’s ready. It’s nothing structural. It’s the same thing that it’s been. It’s just not reacting the same way we thought it would react. He didn’t react to the games we thought he would and he’s clearly not reacting to practice the way we thought he would.”